On April 26th, the Southasia Institute of Advanced Studies (SIAS) organized another series of Future Himalayan Research Seminar. Dr. Teri Allendorf, the Executive Director of Community Conservation Viroqua, Wisconsin, USA presented on “Communities and conservation of global biodiversity.”
Dr. Allendorf, shared her experiences and learning of community conservation from the various countries; Peru, Cameroon, Malaysia, Thailand, Myanmar and Nepal. Highlighting the changing perceptions conservation and biodiversity, she talked about the key aspects and issues that have to be considered in community conservation practices such as community heterogeneity, local’s attitudes, and gender. She stated that connecting community conservation approach with traditional knowledge and practices can greatly expand biodiversity conservation across the globe. Providing a brief of the status of people’s perceptions of protected areas and biodiversity, she stressed that local people are not negative towards biodiversity conservation, rather they are negative towards the ‘management approaches’. She reinforced that conservation begins from the community, therefore recognizing their capacity, knowledge and engaging them in decision making is crucial.
The presentation by Dr. Allendorf was followed by an insightful and interactive discussion session. The discussion emphasized that conservation practices should be more community-centric and context-specific and the conservation practitioners must reflect on the outcomes that local people are getting. The interaction highlighted that it is important to think about the approach that can create linkages between conservation practices with the people’s livelihoods.
